Rumsfeld OK'd techniques, general says

Two Marines pleaded guilty to giving electric shocks to an Iraqi prisoner.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally approved four special interrogation techniques used on two Al-Qaida operatives held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who then talked about the terrorist network and its plans, the commander of U.S. forces in Latin America said Thursday.
Army Gen. James Hill, who heads the U.S. Southern Command, declined to describe the techniques. He said other detainees might "figure out a way to resist those techniques" if they were disclosed.
But Hill specifically denied that police dogs have been used to intimidate detainees during interrogations at Guantanamo, contrary to a sworn statement by an Army intelligence officer under investigation in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.
In the statement, as reported May 26 by The Washington Post, Col. Thomas Pappas, commander at Abu Ghraib when abuses of detainees occurred, said the use of dogs was urged by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller in a 2003 visit to Iraq.
Miller, who was then the commandant at Guantanamo Bay and has since been put in charge of Abu Ghraib, has denied the allegation through a spokesman.
Shocks
Meanwhile, months after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, two 19-year-old Marines pleaded guilty to giving electric shocks to an Iraqi prisoner at another detention facility, military officials said.
A lawyer for one of the men's family said the Marines condoned the abuse at the Al Mahmudiya prison -- and only lodged charges after the larger scandal at Abu Ghraib was exposed.
Pfc. Andrew J. Sting of Bradner, Ohio, and Pfc. Jeremiah J. Trefny entered their pleas at a May 14 court-martial in Iraq, according to a statement by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq. It was released Thursday.
Sting and Trefny were infantrymen with 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and attached to the 1st Marine Division based at Pendleton.
Sting's father, Jeff Sting, said in a telephone interview Thursday his son was following orders, and that he would try to get the conviction thrown out.
According to the military statement, the pair and two other Marines in early April wanted to discipline the detainee for throwing trash outside his cell and speaking loudly in the temporary holding facility south of Baghdad.
The Marines attached wires to a power convertor, which delivered 110 volts of electricity to the detainee as he returned from the bathroom, the statement said.
Sting pleaded guilty to charges of assault, cruelty and maltreatment, dereliction of duty and conspiracy to assault. He was sentenced to a year in prison, a reduction of rank, forfeiture of pay and a bad-conduct discharge.
The family's lawyer, Thomas Sobecki, said the Marines initially gave Sting a reprimand, but charged him after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal unfolded. He said there was no investigation and a quick plea bargain.